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Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as it is known today, is the birthplace of Islam and home to Islam's two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina. It possesses about 20% of the world's proven petroleum reserves, ranks as the largest exporter of petroleum, and plays a leading role in OPEC. The petroleum sector accounts for roughly 80% of budget revenues, 45% of GDP, and 90% of export earnings. Saudi Arabia is encouraging the growth of the private sector in order to diversify its economy and to employ more Saudi nationals. Diversification efforts are focusing on power generation, telecommunications, natural gas exploration, and petrochemical sectors. As part of its effort to attract foreign investment, Saudi Arabia acceded to the WTO in December 2005.

  • Population: 28,686,633 (2009 est.)
  • Telephone main lines: 4.1 million (2008)
  • Mobile telephone subscribers: 36 million (2008)
  • Internet hosts: 471,217 (2009)
  • Internet users: 7.7 million (2008)
  • Digital leased line interface type: E1
CIA World Factbook
Telecommunications equipment is communications or networking equipment with interface(s) to public network or wide area network (WAN) services. Common telecom network interfaces include T1/E1, ISDN BRI, ISDN PRI, ADSL, serial and analogue PSTN.

Compliance International can help you understand how the following approval requirements apply to your telecom equipment products:

CITC Interim Authorization

Saudi Arabia's Communications and Information Technology Commission presently issues Interim Authorization for importing telecommunications and radio equipment. This is in lieu of a type approval procedure while the commission's new procedures are pending. Interim Authorization is based upon review of existing foreign standard test reports.

Compliance International can help you complete CITC interim import authorization in Saudi Arabia with our turnkey support service, which includes building the technical application package, interfacing with regulatory officials, and end-to-end management of the approval process. We can provide the required local applicant for clients who lack a local presence.

Wireless and radio equipment covers any device with a radio transmitter. This includes mobile (GSM or CDMA) handsets, wireless LAN (WLAN) equipment such as Wi-Fi devices, Bluetooth devices, Zigbee devices, WiMAX devices, RFID equipment, contactless card readers, and a whole host of other products that incorporate some kind of RF transmitter.

Compliance International can help you understand how the following approval requirements apply to your wireless and radio equipment products:

CITC Interim Authorization

Saudi Arabia's Communications and Information Technology Commission presently issues Interim Authorization for importing telecommunications and radio equipment. This is in lieu of a type approval procedure while the commission's new procedures are pending. Interim Authorization is based upon review of existing foreign standard test reports.

Compliance International can help you complete CITC interim import authorization in Saudi Arabia with our turnkey support service, which includes building the technical application package, interfacing with regulatory officials, and end-to-end management of the approval process. We can provide the required local applicant for clients who lack a local presence.

Non-telecom ITE is any information technology equipment -- essentially any device with a microprocessor -- that has no telecommunications or radio interface. This includes products such as computer printers and monitors, as well as many types of local area network (LAN) equipment.

Compliance International can help you understand how the following approval requirements apply to your ITE products:

At this time there is no approval required for this type of product. However, regulations and requirements do change, so please contact us to confirm.
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